A conversation with an Iowa anti-choice terrorist has landed Scott Roeder, the convicted killer of Dr. George Tiller, in solitary confinement for 45 days, according to Reuters.

Roeder, who is serving a life sentence for the 2009 murder of one of the country’s only providers of later abortions, received the additional punishment after a telephone conversation with Dave Leach, a member of the anti-abortion terrorist group Army of God, was posted to YouTube in April. In the conversation, Leach and Roeder likened opening a new abortion clinic in Wichita to “putting a target” on the back of the clinic’s operators.

“Eight [providers] have been shot, so we’ve got 92 to go. Maybe she’ll be number nine,” Roeder is heard saying in the recording, referring to Julie Burkhart, who is executive director of the newly opened South Wind Women’s Center in Wichita.

Reuters reports that Roeder will spend “45 days alone in his cell for 23 hours a day, with one hour in the prison yard for exercise, and will have reduced privileges for another 60 days.”

Some of the tactics would seem more likely to be performed by a 5th grader than by the head of a nationally known political organization. Others are tried and true tactics that have harassed providers since the beginning of legal abortion. Together, they mark the desperation of an anti-choice movement terrified of losing what was once their greatest victory—the closing of the Wichita, Kansas abortion clinic where Dr. George Tiller performed both early and later term abortions before he was murdered by Scott Roeder.

Since the closing of the Wichita clinic, Operation Rescue, which relocated to Wichita in 2002 for the sole purpose of harassing the providers in the city, had gleefully used its past as rabble-rouser and instigator of violence to deter other doctors from considering providing pregnancy terminations. When Dr. Mila Means considered taking up the mantle left behind by Tiller, she became the subject of daily “vigils” at her office, suspicious packages, and constant harassment. A judge allowed the owner of her building to block her from offering abortions, saying it would be too disruptive for the building’s other tenants. That was later followed up by threats by Kansas for Life activist and Scott Roeder admirer Angel Dillard, who sent Means a letter telling her that ” thousands of people” were looking into her background and that “They will know your habits and routines. They know where you shop, who your friends are, what you drive, where you live…You will be checking under your car everyday — because maybe today is the day someone places an explosive under it.”

The threats and intimidation ended once Means chose to give up her plans to offer pregnancy terminations. Now, in the wake of news that Tiller’s old clinic has been purchased by Trust Women and their director and former Tiller colleague Julie Burkhart, the harassment—some of it juvenile, some of it serious—is beginning again.

Operation Rescue and its anti-choice local cohorts are using every tactic in the book when it comes to coercing Trust Women and preventing them from re-opening the clinic. Some, like President Troy Newman’s registration of the name Trust Women Foundation with the secretary of state so the supporters of the clinic can’t use it, are just juvenile. Others, such as a petition asking the city council to rezone the clinic out of existence, show a return to their previous attempts to use not actual violence, but their history and the threat of returning to their own violent ways, as a method of strong-arming the city into action. Kansas for Life especially has vowed that the only way to avoid their wrath, and the harassment that comes with it, is to keep the clinic from reopening.

David Gittrich, Development Director for Kansans for Life, said the presence of the Tiller clinic had caused disruption for the neighborhood and that rezoning the new clinic out would protect the quiet atmosphere that has developed since the clinic closed.

After the news conference, he acknowledged that much of the disturbance had been a result of the actions of anti-abortion groups, including his.

But he said it was justifiable and inevitable that reopening the clinic would bring back the protests.

“There’s been people on both sides who have gotten out of line,” he said. “The main point is the abortion industry attracts a huge crowd of people opposed to it. It would be the same thing as if people were opposed to slavery and showed up at a slave market to say they were opposed to it.”

He said Kansans for Life will continue to protest if the clinic opens.

Proving that they mean what they say, picketing has already begun both at the clinic itself and at Burkhart’s home. According to the Associated Press, fliers with Burkhart’s picture and home address have already been found placed around her neighborhood, a chilling reminder of “Wanted” posters that preceded Tiller’s death.

Home harassment has been a long time tactic of anti-choice activists, and is even listed as item 37 in Joseph Scheidler’s “Closed: 99 Ways to Stop Abortions.” Scheidler offers a variety of ways of obtaining home addresses, including getting license plate numbers from clinics and running matches, asking a mutual acquaintance, even calling the office and pretending you are a colleague intending to meet him or her or send a package. Of course calling the office or getting it from someone else are far less likely to occur these days than when Scheidler wrote up his handbook for harassment, but the reasons behind the home presence and leafleting remain the same. Scheidler writes:

While the immediate effect of picketing the abortionist’s home is to dissuade him from engaging in abortion, the long-rage effects is to alert other abortionists to what is in store for them if they remain in the business. It is also intended to dissuade other medical professionals from getting into the lucrative abortion business. After all, who wants to get into a business that will bring with it embarrassing demonstrations at their homes on a Sunday afternoon?

Despite the intimidation, Trust Women continues in their plans to reopen the clinic, which will be known as South Wind Women’s Clinic. They have announced that doctors have been contracted, staff mostly hired, and the clinic is being remodeled to bring it into compliance after the 2012 TRAP legislation forced Kansas clinics to rebuild as ambulatory surgical centers. As for the threat of being zoned out of business, the clinic’s lawyer warned the city council of the precedent that would set. “If you start using the zoning process to do social engineering such as this, that is a very slippery slope and I hope that the zoning and land use process is sufficiently disciplined in Sedgwick County that it wouldn’t be essentially misused by those who are opposed to the operation of a women’s health clinic,” lawyer Robert Eye told the Associated Press in an interview.

The refusal to back down has Operation Rescue and their cohorts looking for even more accusations to throw at them. The newest? That updates to the building are being performed without permits, and that the city needs to shut them down. Cheryl Sullenger, Senior Policy Advisor for Operation Rescue, said in a press release:

“The abortion clinic hasn’t even opened and already it is showing a disregard for the law and for the lives and health of women. If they can’t do a simple thing like pull the appropriate building permits, then they can’t be expected to obey the state’s abortion or standard of care laws, either… If this clinic is allowed to reopen, it is only a matter of time before their gross disregard for the law lands more women in the hospital emergency rooms just as Tiller’s abortion operation did. It’s as sure as the sun rising in the east.”

“The anti-choice clique is certainly entitled to make their complaints. All I would ask is that they would use a little bit of good sense and discretion and make complaints that have merit if they are going to do so,” said Robert Eye, the attorney for Trust Women.

As an example, he cited the complaint’s “evidence of violations” such as completion of architectural plans for clinic redesign and meeting with construction contractors.

“We can speak with our contractors and work with our architect and not have the government’s permission or Operation Rescue’s permission to do that,” Eye said.

…

Eye said he considered the complaint “in the category of mischief.”

“The people we are working with are experienced and knowledgeable in that regard,” he said. “I am confident if a permit is required they have taken the steps to acquire a permit, and if no permit is required they have proceeded without a permit.”

Even with this latest assault on the clinic, Burkhart remains undaunted. “These tactics are nothing but an attempt to distract us,” she told RH Reality Check by email. “Nothing will take us away from our core mission which is to bring comprehensive reproductive services back to Wichita for women and families.”

In honor of Independence Day, Beacon Broadside asked author Carole Joffe (author of Dispatches from the Abortion Wars) what she’ll be celebrating this July 4th.

Speaking as one whose professional and political life focuses on reproductive health services, there has lately been very little lately about which to feel celebratory. (An obvious exception of course– the Supreme Court’s recent decision on health reform). Since the 2010 elections, there have been unprecedented, nonstop assaults by Congress and, especially, the states on both abortion and contraceptive services. Nevertheless, what I do feel both celebratory about, and deeply moved by, is the determined pushback shown by the defenders of these services: the more than a thousand who gathered outside the Virginia State House to protest new regulations on abortion, which had nothing to do with “women’s health” and everything to do with politics; the wonderful women legislators in Michigan who, joined by a joyful crowd of supporters, performed the “Vagina Monologues” at the state capitol, after being literally silenced by Republican leadership because they had dared to speak the word “vagina” while objecting to extreme abortion regulation; and “Pillimina,” the human sized birth control pill that Planned Parenthood has deployed to follow Mitt Romney –and remind voters of his rightward turn on contraception.

I celebrate also the indomitable spirit of the abortion providing community, who go to work each day, knowing that there are politicians ever searching for new ways to shut them down, and aggressive protestors who will attempt to intimidate them and their patients. Finally on this day, I celebrate the memory of Dr. George Tiller of Kansas, an abortion provider assassinated three years ago in his church by an extremist. As one of his former staff told me, Dr. Tiller was deeply patriotic, and took the Independence Day and its meaning to heart. One July fourth, in the midst of particularly grueling protests, Tiller and his staff flew a number of American flags at his clinic, and later mailed these flags to abortion providing colleagues across the country. With the flags, he enclosed a letter that said, as the staff person recollected, “We would be honored if you accepted this flag as a symbol of our journey together on the pathway of Justice, Liberty and Freedom.”

]]>In the midst of a national crisis of epic proportions, in the face of deepening unemployment, international instabiilty, climate change and profound and lasting shifts in the United States economy, John Boehner, speaker-designate of the House of Representatives, is preparing to govern.

How?

By meeting with domestic terrorist Randall Terry, original founder of Operation Rescue, and the man who after the murder of Dr. George Tiller in the vestibule of his church referred to Dr. Tiller as a “mass murderer” and said that, “horrifically, he reaped what he sowed.” How is that for signaling support for the murder of physicians?

He long ago [became a] desperate self-parody. He renounced his gay son, left his wife for a campaign volunteer, and sought a reality television show. If it weren’t for YouTube, no one would’ve even noticed his inflammatory statements about the murder of Dr. George Tiller. In short, Randall Terry’s not only an extremist nutcase, he’s also old news.

Apparently, said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, “In the Boehner-led House, having a miles-long rap sheet calling for violence against abortion providers and their patients gets you an invitation to meet with the incoming speaker’s staff.”

“The Randall Terry meeting signifies that, when it comes to listening to the most extreme elements of the anti-choice movement,” Keenan continued, “Boehner is all ears.”

“Maybe you’re thinking,” writes Keenan in the Huffington Post, “Wait a minute, didn’t Boehner campaign on jobs and the economy? Isn’t calling for attacks on choice inconsistent with the ‘limited government’ he talks about?”

Creating jobs, especially in the short term, will be hard. Boehner won’t have much to show his base, unless he takes aim at a woman’s right to choose. Contrary to his statements about ‘limited government’, Boehner has never missed an opportunity to open the door to more political interference in our personal, private decisions. He even has accepted the endorsementof the Republican National Coalition for Life, which requires all endorsed candidates to “indicate they are faithfully pro-life, and do not justify abortion for innocent babies who are conceived through rape or incest.”

According to NARAL, Boehner has voted anti-choice 142 times out of 142 opportunities he has had to cast a vote on women’s rights and health. Boehner even voted eight times against clinic protection for women and their doctors.

The Terry episode, notes NARAL, comes on the heels of theNational Right to Life Committee’s demand for notorious anti-choice extremist Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) to be given control over the Energy and Commerce Committee’s health subcommittee. And last week, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) promised to undermine reproductive-health programs if his colleagues select him to lead the powerful Appropriations Committee.

NARAL Pro-Choice America has created an online resource outlining the expected anti-choice attacks in the New Congress.

The only freedoms the new Congress will be eager to protect will be those of corporations and self-interested power brokers with money to throw around, like the Koch brothers. The rest of us are just collateral damage.

]]>http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/12/01/company-they-keep-republican-house-leader-meets-radical-antichoice-terrorist-0/feed/0Ankhorite Deep in the Weedshttp://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/05/28/ankhorite-deep-weeds/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ankhorite-deep-weeds
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/05/28/ankhorite-deep-weeds/#commentsFri, 28 May 2010 20:57:49 +0000Women "cannot be allowed" to be heathenish and hedonistic... and a defense of Dr. Tiller, along with crowepps' funny summary of Christian sexual theology.

And the liberty for the unborn part of humanity whom their mothers and fathers have invited to this earth – where is the liberty for these little ones?

The abortion decision is pretty clearly a woman saying she is not inviting a new life to this earth. And liberty? What are you talking about, some “free the fetuses” movement? They are not free. They are encased in a woman’s uterus. What liberties do you think they should have? Weekend passes to go to ball games or something? Why do you keep seeing through living women to fetuses, as if we were transparent fetus tanks?

Now, here in the USA, we are supposed to have freedom of religion. You believe women are “heathenish,” i.e., not religious enough to suit you, and for that, you’re willing to make us all slaves of your political/religious view.

A women cannot be allowed to act in conscience, according to her beliefs, when the only conscience she possesses is unenlightened selfconsciousness and her beliefs are hedonic and heathenish.

“Cannot be allowed” — by whom? Who are you to say what any woman, much less all women, can and cannot be “allowed” ??

Open your eyes to what your beliefs really mean. And then take another look at your Bible… even Mary had a choice, and consented to her pregnancy. I hope some day you will grow enough to accept and celebrate the humanity of women. With these two responses, I feel I’ve done my part.

Someone else commented on the same thread, and it’s so trenchant, I want to keep it where I can find it again:

Giving women no choice but to act in accordance with the pronouncements of your Church isn’t freedom of conscience on any level, first because it may not even be their Church, and second because being allowed to ‘choose’ from a menu of one is not ‘acting on one’s conscience’.

No one can deny you your belief that the wife is Holy Breeding Stock and the husband’s penis God’s Divine Instrument and that God focuses His infinite Omniscience mostly on human sex. You have an absolute religious freedom right to your delusions, however perverse, just as other people have a right to think they’re ludicrous and ignore them.

]]>http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/05/28/ankhorite-deep-weeds/feed/1In Memory of Dr. Tiller: Reflections on the Death of An American Hero One Year Laterhttp://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/05/26/thoughts-reflections-great-american-hero-died/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=thoughts-reflections-great-american-hero-died
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/05/26/thoughts-reflections-great-american-hero-died/#commentsWed, 26 May 2010 09:21:56 +0000On the one year anniversary of his murder, remembering the life and death of my friend and collegue, Dr. George Tiller.

Over the past year, RH Reality Check has extensively covered the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the ensuing trial of Scott Roeder, and related issues. You will find a compilation of those posts here.

31 May 2009; En Route from Washington, DC to Wichita, KS

Today began as a clear crisp sunny day in Washington, D.C. I was at a conference for a national advocacy organization. I found out at 12:30 pm that my recent boss, mentor and father-like figure had been murdered —gunned down at 10:15 am in the lobby of his church – Reformation Lutheran Church while waiting to return to where his wife was singing, as a member of the choir.

This is a devastating day in American history.

I guess we were too successful – I could feel it in the months just before his assassination. The anti-choice, domestic terrorists couldn’t stand that the laws in this land gave him the right to practice medicine. They couldn’t stand that juror after juror wouldn’t kowtow to their beliefs and prosecute him and shut him down. They couldn’t stand that we defeated elected officials at the polls and could win races against their antiquated philosophies. They couldn’t stand it – so they murdered him in cold blood in the church where he worshiped his God.

Those forces of hate, bigotry and rigid ideology are just like the forces of the Taliban that so many Americans rail against, which are merely separated by culture and geography. These are the same people who say that “All life is sacred.” This statement should be amended to say – “All life is sacred if and only if you prescribe to a certain ideology that defines our existence in very narrow terms. Then, life is sacred.”

Dr. George Tiller was a fine and wonderful man. He taught me a lot in the years that I worked with him. He was tough, a teacher and a remarkable leader. He taught me much about life and how to approach problems in a positive manner. He taught me to make lemonade out of lemons. He taught me how to find solutions to problems, how to make the best of any situation, to find the silver lining.

He didn’t sit around and wait for life to lead him around. He followed his passion and his dreams; he created his own reality. He did what he was led to do and that which he loved.

It’s interesting the path that we can find ourselves on in life and where those paths can lead. I never intended to end up, for a longer term, in the women’s rights movement. It’s amazing where life forces help us end up if we listen to them.

I’ve heard this story so many times from him – Dr. Tiller was in the Navy – a doc – and was going to do a dermatology residency. Members of his family, including his parents, were in traveling in a small aircraft when it crashed. He came back to Kansas to close his late father’s medical practice and then get on with his dermatology residency. He never made it – instead, he fell in love with the family practice, which then predominately grew into a predominately reproductive health care practice over the years. What he found out, was that his dad performed abortions for his patients. I think this fact, this notion, sparked what became his life’s mission.

Going back to life’s direction and mission. Maybe that was his life goal. If we believe in a God, which I do in a way that is derived from the energy of the world – an energy both good and bad – then the energy of the universe – God – led his life in that direction. He was born to, led to be an icon in the women’s rights movement. That was the purpose for him. He was built just for that – to provide reproductive health care services to women – he did that well, above and beyond the call – he practiced medicine in a loving, compassionate, tender, nonjudgmental manner.

He understood that women had to be able to welcome, each child into their family unit. It’s called understanding the “heart” of a woman. No one can understand abortion until one understands the heart of a woman. That is exactly why abortion will always be around for myriad reasons – women cannot always welcome an addition into their families. They make choices based on the current dynamic and what is right for that family.

This is exactly why the antis can NEVER win this battle. Women are intelligent enough to make the right choices for themselves AND they will continue to make these choices – with or without bloodshed. They could murder all the providers and women will continue to seek abortions – regardless.

This is why the killing of such a great man is so senseless – one of the many reasons – he did not control the decision-making of women. Abortions will still take place – it’s not Dr. Tiller acting as puppeteer of all these women – its women saying to him – I need this to happen.

I’ve been fielding numerous phone calls today from friends, family, colleagues and the media. F*$# the press – I swear – story hasn’t even been out for a couple of hours and they’re calling me – as if it’s not a personal loss – as if his death is of no consequence.

It angers me because they’ll go talk to “the other side” and get the “we don’t approve of that” speech, but they won’t do anything to condemn it. They just perpetuate the dynamic. If they would stop treating them like they’re legitimate. They aren’t legitimate – they’re the devil, they’re murderers, they lie and say anything to get their way. It’s said in the Good Book that the devil will come in sheep’s clothing. I believe, with all my heart that these people are the devil. It is evil that gathers energy from that source.

I never would have thought in a million years that I would have worked with him. This opportunity came up and I seized it. It was a wonderful decision. I’ve never regretted my work with him, it was a wonderful ride. We needed to do a job and we did it. We didn’t have any bad legislation pass, we didn’t let them win the court cases; we didn’t let them always win at the polls – at least in the big ones. They couldn’t f@#%!*& take it that they were losing – then, of course, Obama’s election and then he announces Sotomayor as an appointee to SCOTUS. They had to be very angry. Nothing was going their way. The country was going to hell. The wrath of God was eminent. It was the ultimate act of self-righteousness; to think you have some divine calling to take another’s life.

One year later: 21 May 2010; St. Louis, MO

Dr. Tiller’s death has left the pro-woman community devastated and struggling to come to terms with his assassination. A vast hole was left in provider care after his murder. Additional physicians across the country have been stepping up, in an attempt to fill the gap that was left by his death. The pro-choice community has been struggling to determine how to best fend off anti-choice tactics meant to shut providers down and deny women access.

It has become apparent that the anti-choice have become emboldened by Dr. Tiller’s murder; which was also driven by vehement opposition to health care reform at the national level. The anti’s have moved swiftly in places such as Kansas and Nebraska to limit abortion care in those states. Anti-choice leaders have taken Dr. Tiller’s assassination, and the fact that other physicians would be stepping in to provide care, as an opportunity for passing more restrictive legislation and redefining our abortion laws in the states, with the intent of having a national impact.

The climate in state legislatures was frustrating, to put it mildly. Both Kansas and Nebraska tirelessly worked to ban late termination of pregnancy, Oklahoma cranked out a plethora of punitive anti-choice bills and Utah sought to criminalize certain actions of pregnant women – these bills only scratch the surface of restrictive legislation proposed across the country.

One thing has become clear over the past year, the pro-choice community has to reevaluate the way in which we approach activism across the country, especially states that are all too often written off as “red” states or “fly over” states,” when in fact, these are the areas of the country that need the pro-woman movement the most. We cannot abandon the women in any state, nor in any corner of this country if we’re going to have equal rights for ALL women in this great nation.

The time has come for us, as a movement, in our own collective ways, whether it’s through education or activism or political engagement, to meet the anti-woman forces on their “own” turf. We must not cede any section of this country.

As I write this, I’m reminded of a sign that Dr. Tiller put up against a truck in his clinic driveway the day after he was shot in 1993. The sign simply said, “Hell no, we won’t go.” That was his motto then and we need to make it our motto now.

Another saying of Dr. Tiller’s, that I’ve meditated on numerous times since his assassination is this, “The only requirement for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.” This is why, in the darkest, bleakest hours, we must continue moving forward, one step at a time, one woman at a time, until we achieve equality for all people of this land.

We love you Dr. Tiller and thank you for being a leader and a beacon of light.

]]>http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/05/26/thoughts-reflections-great-american-hero-died/feed/18The Trial of Scott Roeder: Day Threehttp://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/01/27/the-trial-scott-roeder-day-three/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-trial-scott-roeder-day-three
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/01/27/the-trial-scott-roeder-day-three/#commentsWed, 27 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000On the third day of Scott Roeder's trial for the murder of Dr. George Tiller testimony was heard from Wichita Police Department detectives and officers, Sheriff's deputies, FBI Special Agents, and clerks, all of whom talked about the days their paths crossed with Roeder.

Carolyn Marie Fugit is covering the trial of Scott Roeder on assignment for RH Reality Check. Click here to see her report from Day One and Two.

On the third day of Scott Roeder’s trial for the murder of
Dr. George Tiller testimony was heard from Wichita Police Department detectives and
officers, Sheriff’s deputies, FBI Special Agents, and clerks, all of whom talked about the days their paths crossed with Roeder.

The Sunday morning of May 31st 2009, Lt. Kenneth Landwehr, commander of
the homicide squad, received a call that there had been a shooting. After being
briefed and examining the crime scene, Landwehr worked with other law
enforcement agencies in Kansas and other states, issuing a BOLO, "Be on
the lookout." He talked with the District Attorney about possible other
targets and notified Nebraska. Other officers, including Jason Bartel, were checking
with every hotel in Wichita to see if Roeder had checked in. Saturday, he
checked into the Garden Inn near Kellogg and Rock, about three miles south of
the church. The week before, he had stayed at the Starlight Motel, about a mile
and a half west of the Garden Inn on Kellogg, the major highway through
Wichita.

Sandy Michael had the misfortune of checking Roeder out
of the hotel on Sunday, May 31. She remembered he seemed "happy-go-lucky" and
friendly as he checked out. He had paid with cash and used a coupon – readily available
throughout Wichita – reducing the rate for the night to just under $40. He
arrived the night before around 6:10 pm and left Sunday around 9:30 am, on his
way to the church.

In Johnson County, Kansas, approximately three hours
northeast of Wichita via the fastest highway route, Johnson County Deputy
Andrew Lento patrolled his area of the county. It is usually "very
quiet" Sunday mornings in the furthest south patrol of the county. That
morning around 10:40 am, he was informed of a BOLO for a car with Johnson County
plates. Lento let other officers north of him aware of his plan: at about 1 pm,
he would go as far south as he was permitted on I-35 and wait in the median; if
he saw the car, he would follow it north until they could back him up. They had
been informed the driver was armed, making this a high-risk traffic stop
needing at least 3 officers. A half hour later, he saw a light colored car
headed towards him, the shiny K-State Wildcat vanity plate visible nearly a
half mile away. He got behind the car and confirmed the plate number as the one
they were looking for. A few miles later, they pulled him over and took
him into custody.

The car was sealed for evidence, and Roeder
taken to the county jail where Lento took several pictures of Roeder, dressed
in a denim shirt and black slacks. He noticed some blood spots on a shoe and
his slacks. On cross examination, Steve Osburn asked if the car made any
attempts to leave the highway once Lento’s car got behind him. Lento said he
did not and agreed with Osburn that Roeder complied and did not resist his
arrest.

After Roeder’s car arrived in Wichita, Crime Scene
Investigator Andrew Maul began his investigation. First thing he pointed out to
the jury were a few light brown splashes. He had been told that an usher – Keith
Martin – had thrown a cup of coffee at the car as it drove away. In the
photographs, we can see some landed on the hood, on the roof, and on the
partially-opened window. He informs us the splatters he saw were consistent
with the throwing of a coffee cup. Inside the car, he found a white shirt with
brown spots on it, two ties, live rounds under a seat, a box of ammunition,
several papers from the driver’s side visor – bulletin from the church for May
24; a welcome pamphlet; another handout , this time with Rev. Lowell
Michelson’s name and phone number; another handout from the service on May 30
with a note written on it; card from the Garden Inn; and a check copy from a
checkbook made out to the Bullet Hole – car registration information in the
glove box, and an insurance card in the names of David and Karen Roeder. He
also found a "nasty-looking, serrated, sheath-type knife," he said,
under the front passenger seat and more bullets in the back. He showed us the
white shirt with coffee stains – Keith Martin’s doing all the way back in
Wichita.

In Kansas City, Missouri, FBI Special Agent Andrew Alvey
was asked to look for evidence in the house where Roeder lived. Earlier, the
address from Roeder’s driver’s license and car registration were searched only
to find no one had lived there in a while. Alvey went in and found a bedroom in
disarray. On the bed lay an open and empty suitcase, an empty gun box laying in
front of it. In the living room lay a calendar underneath a remote control. He
also found a receipt for ammo from the Bullet Hole and a church bulletin from
Reformation Lutheran for August 24, 2008.

We hear from three employees of Jayhawk Pawn and Jewelry
in Lawrence who helped Roeder purchase a small .22 caliber handgun and some
ammunition. One explained to him they only carried two brands of ammo for that
size gun – a low velocity and a high velocity. Since Roeder had said he wanted
the gun for target practice, it was recommended that he buy the low velocity as
it is not as loud. However, it had to be loaded from the top of the gun, not in
the magazine, one at a time. As he checked out Roeder, buying one of each kind,
Roeder chit chatted with another patron he had been talking to beforehand.
Later that day, Roeder and another man went to High Plains Gun Shop in Topeka.
Roeder said his gun was not working right. The gun, we hear, was dirty, dry,
and the handle was held on with electrical tape. It was not working properly,
he was told, because he was using the wrong ammunition. While the owner of the
shop fixed the gun, Roeder asked about proper ammo. He bought two different
kinds, some gun oil, and a bumper sticker. Roeder and the man he came in with
spent about half an hour in the store.

Monday morning, Highway Trooper Denton Murray received a
phone call from a man calling himself David Roeder. His daughter had received a
phone call from the media asking about Scott. David was concerned the gun used
to kill Dr. Tiller had his fingerprints on it. As it was explained to Murray,
Scott went to Topeka Saturday afternoon for some target practice at his
brother’s. The two went to High Plains Gun Shop when the gun would not shoot
properly. Murray and FBI Special Agent Michael Miller went out to David’s house
in a more rural part of Shawnee County. On June 1st and 2nd, Miller found
several shell casings and a few bullets on David’s property. They had been told
David owns two guns that Scott use to own – a 9 millimeter and an assault
rifle. He says while they were told the 9 millimeter gun had been used for
target practice in the past, they had not found any spent casings for it those
days, only for the 22. They did not identify what type of shells they found as
they "let the scientists back in the lab make that determination."

Today, we learned how Roeder was apprehended, what he had
in his car on May 31st, that he stayed overnight in Wichita both the night
before and the week before, that he had purchased a gun two weeks earlier, and
that just the day before, he had his gun fixed, bought the correct ammunition,
and made sure his gun worked before he found his way into a special Pentecostal
service at Reformation Lutheran Church. The day before he finally carried out
his plan to assassinate Dr. George Tiller.

The complaint, filed Tuesday with a state board, alleges Kline
allowed subordinates to make misleading statements to other state
officials. It also alleges Kline made a false statement to the office
investigating ethics complaints against him.

Kline, an
anti-abortion Republican, was attorney general in 2003-2007, then
Johnson County district attorney in 2007-08. He’s now a visiting
assistant professor of law at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.

The
complaint will be reviewed first by a panel of the state Board for the
Discipline of Attorneys. But the Kansas Supreme Court would make any
final decision on whether Kline is sanctioned.

]]>http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/01/19/former-kansas-attorney-general-phill-kline-receives-ethics-complaint/feed/0Will Women’s Medical Records End Up In the Hands of George Tiller’s Killer?http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/01/13/will-womens-medical-records-end-up-in-hands-george-tillers-killer/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=will-womens-medical-records-end-up-in-hands-george-tillers-killer
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2010/01/13/will-womens-medical-records-end-up-in-hands-george-tillers-killer/#commentsWed, 13 Jan 2010 14:07:51 +0000As jury selection in the trial of Scott Roeder for the murder of Dr. George Tiller grinds to a,Mrs Tiller faces a defense request that would put the names of her husband's Tiller's patients in the hands of his killer.

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As jury selection in the trial of Scott Roeder for the murder of Dr. George Tiller ground to a temporary halt after a Kansas judge decided that a jury might consider a charge of "voluntary manslaughter," the doctor’s widow went to court to try to quash a defense motion that would put the names of Tiller’s patients in the hands of his killer.

Late last week, Roeder’s defense served Jeanne Tiller with a subpoena
demanding she produce "professional calendars, appointment books,
records of scheduled procedures, or similar document," for all
procedures scheduled at Tiller’s Wichita clinic between May 1st and
June 31, 2009.

In Kansas, "voluntary manslaughter" is defined as an "unreasonable but
honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force"
during an intentional killing.

Clearly, in demanding these documents, Roeder’s defense wants to show that his client believed he
was saving the lives of perhaps dozens of unborn children when he
gunned the 67-year old doctor down in the foyer of the Reformation
Lutheran Church in Wichita.

In their motion, Mrs. Tiller’s lawyers argue that those records are held not by Mrs.
Tiller personally, but in a medical trust administered by the law firm,
as required by Kansas state law, so that former patients might access
them should they be needed in the future.

Releasing these
records would not only violate precedent, it would be a "failure to
provide adequate protections to the privacy of Dr. Tiller’s patients,
who sought or obtained constitutionally protected medical services.
Disclosure of patient names alone, let alone other identifying
information to the public, and most certainly to an avowed
anti-abortion terrorist, would constitute the most egregious violation
of their rights of privacy imaginable"

"There is no law or logic which places any rights of the defendant above those rights of privacy."

Foreshadowing arguments prosecutors are likely to make before Judge Warren Wilbert regarding a defense of "voluntary manslaughter," Mrs. Tiller’s
attorneys say in their filing that the records are "wholly irrelevant
to any material issue in the pending case." Roeder can’t argue
justification, "insamuch as the imperfect use of force codified" in
state law "requires that any act be in defense of a ‘person,’" and a
fetus is not defined as a person under that same state law.

Mark Rudy, Scott Roeder’s public defender, has been trying to gain access to
this information months, and has told a blogger for the Wichita Eagle
that “what we’re going to do now is turn our efforts to getting the
records from the medical trust."

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Judy Thomas of the Kansas City Starreports that the eBay auction to raise money for Scott Roeder launched Sunday night despite eBay’s pledge to
nix it. Roeder is charged with the murder of Dr. George Tiller in the vestibule of his church on May 31st, 2009.

Roeder’s supporters want him to hire an attorney other than his public
defenders in order to use a “necessity defense,” saying that Tiller’s
killing was an act of justifiable homicide. (emphasis added).

"Organizers posted items that were less contentious
than those they’d originally planned to sell, and they used spellings
that make searches difficult," reports Thomas.

“I really am hopeful that eBay can
see that once this is up, that it is not a glorification of violence,”
said auction organizer Dave Leach, an abortion opponent from Iowa. “If
the auction stays up, it will only be because eBay has been shamed into
recognizing the nonviolent nature of the items.”

EBay officials
were not available Sunday for comment to the Star, but last week had said the
proposed listings violated the company’s policy regarding offensive
material.

“We do not oppose all listings that raise money for
legal defense funds,” said Jack Christin Jr., eBay’s associate general
counsel for government relations, in a Friday statement. “However, our
policy does not permit listings that benefit someone charged with or
convicted of a crime.”

Not to mention that suggesting that justifying the murder a doctor for performing a legal medical procedure for any reason will only serve to incite more violence.

The Star reports that items organizers
said were being donated last week included several drawings
submitted by Roeder; an Army of God manual that describes dozens of
ways to shut down abortion clinics; and a prison cookbook compiled by
Shelley Shannon, who shot Tiller in 1993 and is serving time for clinic
arsons and bombings.

On Sunday, however, the only items listed
were a document of religious instruction written by a convicted clinic
bomber and a Bible that belonged to Shannon.

“It has all the pro-life passages highlighted,” Leach said of the Bible.